THiS Glorious Sadness

No pictures here. Last night (1/9/11) I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do...and for some reason I knew I had to do it alone. I've always known that. Last night after many years of sadness and indecision, I went to the east side of town where my family lived when we first moved to Florida...there, after about 8-10 years I spread my Mom's ashes. I took some of them to our home and left them on the grass and then I took the rest and washed them away in the beautiful lake at the end of the street. I feel peace and I feel sadness. My Mom and I had a very bittersweet relationship, but your Mother is your Mother. This decision confirmed that there is only Craig and me and that is a feeling you will never know until you get there.

Later on, or maybe tomorrow I want to make a list of good things I remember about my Mom, and I would like for Craig to do this too. He is not as public as I am, so maybe he won't. But I am going to ask him.
Through thick and thin, one thing remains, my Mother loved her children.

Jia's Field Trip

Jia had her first field trip of the year. She had many orders for us, very specific:

1. She must wear her Mrs. Zelonka' Zoo Animal Tee shirt (her class shirt.)
2. She needed a jacket.
3, She needed her lunch in a Brown paper bag, not her lunch box, the brown bag needed to be stapled.
4. Her name had to be printed in big letters.

The class was going to a place called Flamingo Gardens, which is a wildlife, flora and fauna park. It has plants and vegetation that are native to this area, plus flamingos, alligators, snakes, owls, lots of birds, turtles. They put the kids in a tram and give them a tour.

We have a feeling that the biggest thrill of the day was riding the big yellow school bus! But Jia was thrilled and came home with a lot of cryptic information that we transferred the best we could.

Today we are taking the Christmas tree down. It is usually long gone by now, but I convinced them to keep it up a little longer. It was so beautiful!

Don't Ask/Don't Tell

With the exception of very few friends and of course my immediate family people have been probably asking, "What's up with Lesa?" I have been diagnosed with congenital mental illness. On my mother's side of the family, my grandmother was an agoraphobic. My mom had such serious illnesses that she ended up committing suicide in a year that was already professionally difficult for me. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, and agoraphobia. There are times when I cannot leave the house for days or even weeks. I am taking medicine that has made me gain 30 pounds and either makes me extremely tired or keeps me awake. Because of my illness, I cannot make plans and know that I can keep them. I cannot let anyone in my house, although I'm not a hoarder lol, and I cannot talk on the telephone.

My brother Craig has been diagnosed with very similar symptoms. I see a psychologist once a week and a psychiatrist once a month. I am now receiving Social Security Disability Benefits and I am not working. A very good friend of mine tells me that if you look at this blog you would think we were the most normal family in the world. We try to make our family normal for our children, they do understand that their Mom has some issues but they do not define her. My children are not only o.k, but they excel at everything they do. We have a loving family and we have tons of good times together so there is no reason to worry about them, the preceding pictures of the girls are real. Drew goes out of his way to make up for things I am not capable of doing. Whenever there is a function our girls have both parents there, whether it is hard for me or not. This blog will continue to show the episodes of my family and the fun that we have and the love that we enjoy. It's just that I feel that it's also important that since it's my blog I should explain some of the other things that are going on.

Next up, Jia's field trip. Don't miss it!

Taking My Blog Back

In September of 2008 my family gave me the gift of a blog. I decided to use it as a place to post family pictures and events. When I looked at my blog counter recently I saw that there were almost 30,000 hits which made me realize that there were a whole bunch more people reading my blog then just my family. So I decided that I would take my blog back and write about all the things that go on in my life. Some of them are great, some are hard, and some are happy. Please keep reading.

Lesa For,

Another Legend Leaves the Gator Nation

Great game in the Outback Bowl today. Sadly, today marked the retirement of Urban Meyer. A coach with integrity, skill and spirituality. He will be missed in the Gator Nation.

HAVE THE BEST NEW YEAR...

I pray that each of my family and friends have a blessed 2011. I am not making public resolutions, but I do have private hopes and wishes for the new year, I hope you do too. Nothing is more important than health and the happiness of your loved ones, I wish this for all of you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!

WARNING!! THIS IS A MONTAGE OF OUR ENTIRE CHRISTMAS
I BELIEVE THERE ARE 3 POSTS. YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET A CHAIR AND SOMETHING TO EAT. THANKS FOR READING OUR BLOG AND SHARING OUR CHRISTMAS!

Jia-About to discover Christmas

YESSSSS!

Jia's pickle-for the whole pickle story please google
It is a German tradition

Anna in her nice "Florida weight (perfect) Jacket from
Nona and Grandpa

Jia LOVES her monkey slippers

Katie with her jacket in Navy.

Some stocking gifts

Anna and Katie reading their "pickle" clues.

Anna was the winner this year and the lucky recipient of a
twenty dollar Target gift card

Jia with her beautiful dress. We were disappointed that her school did not have a winter show this year. She will wear it when her sisters get inducted into the National Honor Society later this month.

This picture is for Ellen, Sunny, as you can see, was right in the middle of the festivities

Drew opening his Tony Dungy book which he is actually reading!

My Chihuahuas received little blankets

Our pug (BennyFoo-not pictured) received a Stetson University collar

Anna requested skull head footy pj's
It makes me sweat just looking at it

Tim Tebow, a man that is grateful to our Lord and
thanks our Savior for all of his blessings

Don't know what time it was, but it was still dark out when....ANNA jumped in our bed waiting to open gifts, in her defense Jia was already sleeping with us as Jia made up the law that everyone had to sleep upstairs so we didn't get an accidental peek of Santa and he would take all of our presents back.

As you can imagine, the usual mayhem ensued. It took about two hours:

Highlights:

Katie asked for a Belgian Waffle Iron and a 4 slice toaster and got both for Christmas

Jia got a beautiful grown up dress from Nona and Grandpa. She also got a pair of sock monkey slippers from Auntie Jenny and Uncle Craig that we haven't been able to get off her feet.

Anna loved the surfboard memo station that Auntie Jenny and Uncle Craig sent, and of course my shopper was thrilled with her stack of gift cards.

I was perplexed by electronical gifts: a new phone on which I am determined to learn how to text and a ITouch 4G which is supposed to be really cool (I am a cave woman, and besides blogging I am a little out of touch, so I will need huge amounts of lessons)
In an effort to get Drew to learn how to read again (joke) he received 2 sports books and a huge manual on how to use his IPad (hopefully now he won't hours playing a game called "Angry Ducks"??????? We also bought him a pair of reading glasses in which we all agree he looks just like Grandpa.

We made Drew happy this year by having a Honey Baked ham, Katie made my Mom's delicious twice baked potatoes, Anna was in charge of the yummy deviled eggs and the apple pie was from Publix.

My job was to wrap all of the presents for the gift exchange job later and to clean up from my last wrapping job.

Last picture, some of you know our love for this boy who is full of grace and talent, which he never takes for granted.